{
  "title": "More People, More Technology, More Jobs: How to Build Inclusive Growth",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, December 4, 2017",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2017/12/04/more-people-more-technology-more-jobs-how-to-build-inclusive-growth",
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  "summary": "Authors: Stefania Fabrizio, Andrea F. Presbitero",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview and framing",
      "content": "- Authors: Stefania Fabrizio, Andrea F. Presbitero\n- Date: December 4, 2017\n- Central premise: Population growth and technological innovation do not necessarily have to widen inequality in developing countries; outcomes depend on current policy choices and on balancing short-term needs with long-term goals for sustainable and inclusive growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Population dynamics and labor market challenges",
      "content": "- Demographics:\n  - In Africa the under-25 generation represents 60 percent of the population.\n- Labor supply and demand pressures:\n  - Population growth potentially boosts the supply of low-skilled workers while automation simultaneously squeezes labor demand.\n  - World Bank estimate cited: two-thirds of jobs in developing countries are susceptible to mechanization.\n  - A McKinsey report indicates robots using current technologies could already carry out more than 50 percent of work activities in countries like Kenya and Colombia.\n- Labor market polarization and premature deindustrialization:\n  - Technological advancement may polarize the labor market into very low-skilled and high-skilled workers, increasing inequality.\n  - Continuous skill upgrading in manufacturing has led to a decline in low-skilled manufacturing jobs, described as premature deindustrialization'—developing countries are starting to deindustrialize earlier and at lower income levels than in the past.\n- Constraints to inclusive growth:\n  - Shortage of skilled workers.\n  - Insufficient infrastructure such as electricity and roads."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Opportunities from technology",
      "content": "- Positive impacts of technology on development:\n  - Improved job matching through greater information.\n  - Lower consumer prices and greater access to new markets and services due to lower connectivity costs.\n- Case examples:\n  - Kenya: access to the mobile money M-PESA increased per capita consumption levels and lifted 2 percent of Kenyan households out of poverty, especially households led by a woman.\n  - Rwanda: a start-up uses drones to deliver medicines and blood in remote areas.\n  - Tanzania: in 2013 a new tax payment system using mobile phones lowered the risk of carrying money to banks and reduced the cost of doing business by saving time spent queuing in banks.\n  - Philippines (city of Batangas): supported by USAID, launched a similar mobile tax payment system in March 2014 to help businesses pay taxes via mobile devices.\n- Technology and public services:\n  - Technological change can improve transparency and efficiency in public service provision."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy priorities and reforms",
      "content": "- Education and skills:\n  - Invest in the quality of education, align education with labor market demands, and emphasize on-the-job training.\n  - Evidence: an experiment in Afghanistan showed that setting up good quality village schools significantly increases enrollment and academic performance, especially for girls.\n- Connectivity, migration, and investment:\n  - Improve connectivity and technologically advanced transportation networks to broaden benefits of urbanization, create opportunities, and increase jobs.\n  - More open migration policies and incentives for diaspora investment can foster diversification, diffusion of technology, and growth.\n  - Ricardo Hausmann’s emphasis: growth potential depends on diffusion of know-how and technology; “it is easier to move brains than it is to move the relevant information into brains.”\n- Industrial policy and spatial trade-offs:\n  - Concentrating resources in one part of a country can boost innovation and create jobs but may widen income gaps between rich and poor areas and risk social and political unrest.\n- Political economy and timing:\n  - Some policies that generate higher long-term growth may not provide wide short-term benefits, reducing political incentives to implement them.\n  - Key challenge: balance short-term imperatives with longer-term goals to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key takeaways",
      "content": "- The long-term outcomes of population growth and automation hinge on today’s policy choices.\n- Policies should prioritize:\n  - Skill development and education quality.\n  - Improved mobility and connectivity.\n  - Migration frameworks and incentives for diaspora engagement.\n  - Strategic infrastructure and targeted industrial policies that consider equity implications.\n- Implementation requires managing trade-offs between efficiency and equity, and between short-term political constraints and long-term development goals.\n\nIMF Blog post: “More People, More Technology, More Jobs: How to Build Inclusive Growth” (Stefania Fabrizio, Andrea F. Presbitero; December 4, 2017).\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Towards 2030: Trends, Opportunities, Challenges, and Policies for Inclusive Growth\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2017/12/04/more-people-more-technology-more-jobs-how-to-build-inclusive-growth"
    }
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    "Authors: Stefania Fabrizio, Andrea Presbitero",
    "Published: December 4, 2017",
    "Authors: Stefania Fabrizio, Andrea F. Presbitero",
    "Date: December 4, 2017",
    "Central premise: Population growth and technological innovation do not necessarily have to widen inequality in developing countries; outcomes depend on current policy choices and on balancing short-term needs with long-term goals for sustainable and inclusive growth.",
    "Demographics:",
    "Labor supply and demand pressures:",
    "Labor market polarization and premature deindustrialization:",
    "Constraints to inclusive growth:",
    "Positive impacts of technology on development:",
    "Case examples:",
    "Technology and public services:",
    "Education and skills:",
    "Connectivity, migration, and investment:",
    "Industrial policy and spatial trade-offs:",
    "Political economy and timing:",
    "The long-term outcomes of population growth and automation hinge on today’s policy choices.",
    "Policies should prioritize:",
    "Implementation requires managing trade-offs between efficiency and equity, and between short-term political constraints and long-term development goals.",
    "[Towards 2030: Trends, Opportunities, Challenges, and Policies for Inclusive Growth](https://www.imf.org/external/POS_Meetings/SeminarDetails.aspx?SeminarId=266)"
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